News

BMSc Curling Research

Iona Robertson, an Intercalated BMSc student studying Applied Orthopaedic Technology at the TORT Centre, is carrying out research into the sport of Curling. Along with Mr Calum MacDonald (IMAR Lab Support) she has been attending the ice rink at The Peak (Stirling Sports Village) where she collected project data from three of the Men’s British Curling Team from the 2014 Winter Olympics; David Murdoch, Scott Andrews and Michael Goodfellow.

Iona asked the team members to deliver 12 stones, 6 as flat foot slide, 6 as toe slide whilst wearing Pedar in-shoe pressure measurement insoles in their shoes in an attempt to understand and establish the difference in knee force when using both delivery techniques; in effect to show that toe-sliding is more likely to cause knee injury during curling stone delivery. Iona is also recording sagittal video of the curlers as they deliver each stone, allowing measurement of the knee angles of the player’s during delivery.

Iona stated: “It has been a wonderful opportunity to be able to work with such high level athletes. To be able to combine my love of the sport with my studies has made carrying out my BMSc research very enjoyable. Although the final results of the study are not complete yet, the data collected so far looks very promising in that the calculated joint forces in the knee are significantly higher for toe slides than flat-footed slides”.

The Team with Calum MacDonald

Iona's supervisor Professor Rami Abboud stated: “This once again shows how the students studying various courses within the TORT Centre interact with the local community and industry highlighting that our research is not bound to labs or tethered to the inside of a building. We can take our systems to most locations, which allows greater freedom for specialist participants such as the Olympic Team and also currently Dundee Utd football club. I would like to thank Mr Michael Goodfellow for helping us get this research organised using the elite of the curling world”.